Thanks for sharing as well!

Thank you for sharing, that’s awesome!

I preface this with saying: I’m neither a developer nor expert on the Switch, but there’s some general things to consider:

• The splash screen is probably mostly a (DRM) check of the cartridge and maybe initializes a few other things, especially the player selector.
• The switch is essentially an aging Android tablet on steroids. The SoC used is the successor to the SoC used in Nvidias Shield gaming tablet. (By comparison, you could compare the PS5 to a current mid-tier gaming PC in terms of pure hardware specs)
• Even if the Switch is small, games still run ideally at 720p up to FullHD resolution, this might not show on the small screen but it still means that character-, environment, etc. models all have a certain size.
• The Switch is very limited on RAM so there is probably quite some swapping going on.
• Especially since you compared it to the PS5, one important thing you have to realize is, that if you buy a game on BluRay for any modern console, they usually load most, if not all of the data to run the game onto internal storage, while the physical disc is basically only a hardware license key afterwards, to check that you still “own” the game. Therefore you must observe:
• The switch has NAND storage, whereas the PS5 has enormously fast NVMe storage (and also way more RAM and VRAM) to load all game data way faster.
• I don’t know which exact role patches play in this equation but you also have to realize, that the Switch, when running a game from cartridge is most likely pulling data from both the cartridge and internal memory or the MicroSD card, wherever patches are installed.
• Finally, the Switch is a mobile handheld console, same as why a gaming laptop will never come close to the performance of a gaming (desktop) PC, the former is built with tighter TDP limits and considerations for battery life, whereas thermals are pretty much the only limiting factor for a desktop PC and those can be adjusted way easier by using a larger case.
• If you look at simple 2D games, for the switch, take, for example, Crypt of the Necrodancer, or Dead Cells, you’ll see that they run and load about as fast as on any other console/PC, simply by everything about them being way less data and computationally intensive.
• In comparison to older consoles (i.e. N64), you have to also appreciate the fact that many titles, these days, are written for some game engine like Unreal or Unity which then translates it with the click of a button to all the platforms a developer wants. While I’m sure they do the best they can to optimize their engines well for all platforms, there sure is a lot of performance left on the floor as compares to “the old ways”™ where games were “handcrafted” (as in written in the platforms Assembly language), for each platform they were released in.

So, I hope I didn’t write any total nonsense amongst all these points, they are just a braindump of IT knowledge, compared with things I’ve watched/read/learned over time, so take them with a grain of salt. Still, I think it should give you an intuitive idea of why the Switch has those “horrendous” loading times. :)

Does anyone know who this original tweet, that is referenced, is from?

What helps me really well with text selection is to zoom in quite a bit.

I developed a habit of going out to get sweet pastries until I realized that I can easily make, for example, puff pastries at home just combining some cheaply available base ingredients and getting more for less money and have it taste just the way I like.

Thanks for sharing, this is a very insightful read.

I just bought https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B09PHMS83L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and it’s working fine for me. Might be about the combination of all components though (phone, charger, cable, headphones)?

There arw usb-c/heasphone-jack Y-cables so you can charge while listening to music without going for a full blown usb-c hub

Yeah, really sucks that they removed MicroSD slots from their phones. 😔

With the demise of SD slots in high end phones, I’m mostly ‘stuck’ with Samsung, since I want at least 512gb device storage and few manufacturers offer that much. Also, while still far from perfect, DeX is rather nice to have

I have been using my S22 Ultra as a Modem for quite some time now, works like a charm. Although I’m directly using the persobal hotspot. Attaching it to a router via USB would probably require just the right setup

This reminds me of a quote, I read in the context of stoicism once, which was along the lines of: “The best place to practice your philosophy is where you are” and I agree fully with that and the post above. Sometimes moving can be sensible and necessary but I think we might have turned the aim for simplicity into an unhealthy sport sometimes.

Great article! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much for sharing this article! It is a very stimulating read as I’m on my own journey to (re-)discover what activities brought me joy, bring me joy and might bring me more joy in the future. Especially the part about obsessing and just spending absurd amount of resources as a source for frustration was really interesting to me!

I haven’t read the book and I also didn’t mean to take away from the conclusion that our attention span is gone and the way we interact with social media is at fault. However, I strongly oppose phrasing such things in a way that make us look like victims who aren’t in control of our lives. Take for example alcohol: It’s a drug that everyone knows is bad for the body, yet many people drink it. We are enticed by ads and peer pressure to join the “alcohol drinkers” and yet, if someone becomes an alcoholic or at least overly inclined to alcohol consumption, nobody says “their sobriety was stolen from them” but “they became a drinker/alcoholic”.

So yeah, I wholeheartedly agree that we need to tackle this issue both on an individual level and as a society, I just also think that we need to accept, that we always had it in our hands.

While I agree, that we have stumbled into a collective ADHS induced by modern social media (consumption), I dislike the fatalistic way of saying “our attention was stolen”. It wasn’t stolen, we handed it over. Everyone was in charge of doing so and thus, we, as a society, are also in charge of gaining our attention back. Nothing stops us from not using all these apps and reconnecting at an actual person to person level. So let’s give it our best, read books, enjoy walks and learn to focus again.